[mft_]

I’d argue not that we’re ‘stuck’ here on Earth (just) because it’s hard, but because there’s been no major incentive to do otherwise for decades.

The original incentives for the space race were political during the Cold War - rockets, satellites, then landing on the moon. Since then, NASA has mostly stagnated without a clear vision to deliver. Likewise (until recently) the major aerospace providers were happy just doing well enough to make some dollars from their lobbying and ‘cost-plus’ contracts.

The only game-changer is SpaceX, set up to deliver the vision of a slightly eccentric multi-millionaire (now billionaire, of course). But I’d argue that SpaceX isn’t doing anything so revolutionary that it couldn’t have been done earlier by various others (including NASA itself) if they’d had the right vision and incentives. Sad, really - all of that money, time, effort, and human potential effectively wasted.